X-Men: The Road to Second Coming

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We trace the X-Men's journey from House of M to their current struggles.

By Jesse Schedeen

In case you haven't heard, the X-Men are about to head into another major crossover storyline. While the franchise has offered several major crossovers in the past year – Messiah War, Utopia, and X-Necrosha among them – it's been several years since Messiah Complex left its mark on the mutant world. Starting this spring, Second Coming will wrap up all the loose threads from several years' worth of X-storylines.

One of the things we like to do at IGN Comics is help readers get up to date for major crossovers and events like Second Coming. In this feature, we're charting the course of the X-men mythology over the past ten years. Everything from Grant Morrison's New X-Men and Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men through Messiah Complex and the most recent X-events is covered. We also recommend relevant trades and hardcovers for those interested in reading up on these stories. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the vast amount of X-Men material out there, hopefully this guide will put you on the right path.

Before launching into the major X-Men events of the past decade, it's important to know where the team was at the beginning of the 21st Century. With the first X-Men movie renewing mainstream interest in the merry mutants, marvel made the decision to overhaul the X-books and reflect some of the changes seen in the film. X-Men, at the time still the flagship book of the franchise, morphed into New X-Men. Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely were brought in to polish up the characters and give them a post-modern shine.

The familiar spandex costumes were discarded in favor of black leather uniforms. The leather was adorned in flashy, yellow X-logos. In Morrison's eye, the X-Men were as much a corporation as a superhero team, and the X was their answer to Nike's Swoosh symbol. Battles with super-villains took a backseat to human/mutant relations and horrifying sci-fi monstrosities. Morrison's fans expected nothing less.

New X-Men culminated with the reveal that new recruit Xorn was actually Magneto in disguise (a reveal that has been reversed and rendered excessively convoluted over the ensuing years). Not-Magneto killed Jean Grey before getting his head sliced off courtesy of Wolverine. With Xavier stepping down from his leadership role, Cyclops stepped up to lead the team into another bold, new era.

The X-Men were revamped once again in Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. The spandex returned under the philosophy that humans are less likely to hate and fear something as beloved and familiar as a band of superheroes. Under Whedon's hand, the core X-Men confronted a possible mutant cure, a resurrected Colossus, and encountered the first signs that Xavier's legacy was not so squeaky clean as he would have his students believe. Through it all, the X-Men persevered. But things were about to get a lot worse.

Mutants Reign Supreme

As seen in:House of M HC, House of M: Spider-Man, Fantastic Four & X-Men HC

Magneto has long dreamed of creating a world where mutants are the dominant race. Despite his best efforts, it was his daughter, The Scarlet Witch, who actually made it happen. The increasingly unstable Wanda, at the behest of her brother Pietro, used her chaos magic to rewrite reality. In this new world, mutants ruled over humans. At the head of the pack was the House of Magnus. In order to lull the Avengers and the X-Men into passivity, all heroes were granted their heart's fondest desires.

Unfortunately, this plan had one fatal flaw. Wolverine's greatest desire has always been to remember his past. No sooner did the world shift than Wolverine awoke and remembered the truth. Together with a mysterious young girl named Layla Miller, Wolverine restored the memories of his allies and led the charge against Magneto's forces.

A bloody battle ensued on Genosha. But Magneto was as much a victim of Scarlet Witch's deception as anyone. When his memories were restored, Magneto's first act was to murder his son. Wanda, realizing her magic couldn't bring her family happiness, broke her spell with three fateful words - "No more mutants."

Reality reverted to normal, with one major caveat. The vast majority of the world's mutant population had been de-powered. A government census revealed that a mere 198 mutants remained, and the likelihood of new mutants being born was nil. For a race that had always been hated and feared, it was truly their darkest hour.

No More Mutants

As seen in: House of M: No More Mutants HC, Decimation: X-Men – Son of M TPB, Civil War: X-Men TPB, X-Men: Deadly Genesis Premiere HC

The fallout from House of M was felt immediately across every X-book. Just as The Initiative followed Civil War and Dark Reign followed Secret Invasion, Decimation was an ongoing story direction that saw the mutant community come to terms with its near extinction. In books like X-Men and New X-Men Vol. 2, the cast of characters shrank as several X-men found themselves powerless. In Son of M, a de-powered Quicksilver attempted to restore his powers by stealing the Terrigen Crystals.

In the early months of Decimation, the whereabouts of Professor Xavier were unknown. The mystery was finally solved in the pages of X-Men: Deadly Genesis. Xavier's spine was healed once more, but his telepathic powers were eliminated. The story also debuted the villain Vulcan – former X-Man and the third Summers brother that Mr. Sinister had alluded to so many years before.

If Astonishing X-Men hinted at a darker side of Xavier, Deadly Genesis opened the floodgates. By the end, Xavier's legacy was tarnished and his relationship to Cyclops was seriously, and perhaps permanently, damaged.

For many years, it's been a tradition to have each X-book focus on a specific segment of the team. However, in the early part of the decade each segment essentially boiled down to "Wolverine and everybody else". In 2006, the X-writers made a concerted effort to differentiate the X-books again. Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men returned with the same core cast. Recent events were vaguely alluded to, but the title remained largely self-contained. After dealing with a resurgent Hellfire Club and a war on the Breakworld, Whedon's run culminated with the apparent death of Kitty Pryde.

Uncanny X-Men continued directly from where Deadly Genesis left off. Vulcan directed his wrath at the Shi'ar Empire. Xavier, seeking to atone for his past mistakes, led a team including Rachel Grey, Warpath, Havok, and Polaris into space. After a fierce battle, Xavier's powers were restored and Vulcan ascended as emperor of the Shi'ar. From here, the story continued in War of Kings and became less X-Men-oriented.

Finally, Mike Carey's X-Men featured a strike team of mutants led by Rogue. Here, more than any other series, readers would see the seeds being laid for upcoming major X-storylines.

The Noose Tightens

As seen in: X-Men: Blinded by the Light TPB, Uncanny X-Men: The Extremists TPB, X-Men: Endangered Species HC

By 2007, readers were well aware that a major crossover was brewing for the X-Men books. Uncanny and X-Men both began laying the groundwork for what would become Messiah Complex. X-Men dealt with an assault on the X-Mansion by Sinister's Marauders. The real motivation for this attack was Destiny's Diaries, a series of prophetic books that foretold future trials for the mutant race.

In Uncanny, readers were reacquainted with a powerless Magneto. Those X-Men who returned from Shi'ar space were caught up in a struggle underneath New York to track down another book of prophecy. As with its sister series, Uncanny was quickly building towards the events of Messiah Complex.

Meanwhile, all the X-books began featuring chapters of a back-up story called "Endangered Species". Here, Beast began a long and fruitless quest to understand Scarlet Witch's spell and seek a way to restore the mutant gene. Despite the assistance of his twisted counterpart, Dark Beast, it became clear that no form of science was capable of undoing Scarlet Witch's work.